


Daughter

by felldownthelist



Series: Inheritance [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Absent Parenthood, Canonical Child Abuse, Dealing with our Issues, Downhill Mountain Biking, Expressions of Grief, Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Siblings, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-24 05:54:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21333328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/felldownthelist/pseuds/felldownthelist
Summary: It’s funny because she’s been so proud of herself; learning to be a human and reconnecting properly with her siblings and discovering new interests (kicking stuff is an interest, shut up) that it never occurred to her that… fuck.She’s been a selfish sack of shit this whole time.“Mommy, when are you coming to visit?” Claire’s voice echoes over the phone, and Allison kind of wishes she were anywhere else.“I-” she trails off, because she can’t say ‘the thought gives me an anxiety attack’ or ‘but aren’t you happy with your Dad now? He sure as hell doesn’t want me near you’ or even ‘you coped without me for months at a time before… I sort of hoped you would forget’.
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Diego Hargreeves, Allison Hargreeves & Everybody, Allison Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Allison Hargreeves & Patrick
Series: Inheritance [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1537864
Comments: 59
Kudos: 230





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote some stuff and then changed some names so I could pretend it wasn't about me it's about some imaginary people from the TV. This writing shit is vaguely therapeutic. I think. Sorry if you read it and hate it or me or have opinions on a bunch of the sore subjects, feel free to send verbal abuse. BOY AM I FEELING GREAT.
> 
> PREVIOUSLY: Patrick fucked off with Claire to le France where his family have a place after some bad shit in the press about Allison literally Being A Consent Issue. Allison moved out with Diego and Klaus because none of them could deal with moving to a real apartment on their own. Diego and Allison both hit the gym excessively. Nobody at the gym has ever seen an Allison Hargreeves movie let alone gives a shit (okay they have. Bill, the massive ex-strongman fucking loves a cheesy romcom, but he kind of respects the gym as a sacred space and doesn’t want to be weird). Five and Luther live at Casa Hargreeves. Vanya is still the only one of them who manages to be in any way normal. (And she’s Vanya. Guys.)

It’s funny because she’s been so proud of herself; learning to be a human and reconnecting properly with her siblings and discovering new interests (kicking stuff is an interest, shut up) that it never occurred to her that… fuck.

She’s been a selfish sack of shit this whole time.

“Mommy, when are you coming to visit?” Claire’s voice echoes over the phone, and Allison kind of wishes she were anywhere else.

“I-” she trails off, because she can’t say ‘the thought gives me an anxiety attack’ or ‘but aren’t you happy with your Dad now? He sure as hell doesn’t want me near you’ or even ‘you coped without me for months at a time before… I sort of hoped you would forget’.

She spent nearly ten months with the human at the other end of the line inside of her. The relationship with her father was a lie. Allison was a lie. Allison thinks now that she was somebody who was made from broken pieces, somebody who was practically childish themselves trying desperately to make the kind of life she’d seen on TV – husband, child, picket fence. She looks back, now, and wants to protect _herself_, wants to go back and get rid of everybody who ever hurt her as though it happened to somebody else. She’s on hiatus from acting, on hiatus from stupid fucking therapy because Patrick ran away to _France_ with Claire so what’s the point. In the process she has kind of become her own priority and it’s been so alien that she may have forgotten.

She’s meant to be a _mother_. She’s _been one_ for years. It’s suddenly terrifying _all over again_.

Diego stands opposite her while she uses the apartment’s phone, slumped against the wall, arms folded.

He understands, she thinks. He would understand. She feels like absolute shit.

“Baby,” she starts, immediately capitulating. “I’ll book a flight. I’ll come visit. Let me talk to Daddy.”

“Okay!” Claire says, bright. “He’s here, Daddy Mom is coming to stay and we can have croissants and visit Lake Geneva and she can ride a bike down the Pleney.”

While the phone rustles, Allison turns her face to the wall and reaches out for her brothers hand. He holds on, and she’s grateful.

“Allison,” Patrick’s clipped tone comes through. “What are you doing.”

“You heard her,” Allison all but pleads. “What am I supposed to do? My kid wants me to visit.”

“Mmhmm,” Patrick says. “Claire would you grab that for me? No the – yeah, you know. In the study.” A beat. “What the hell are you playing at? Now she thinks you’re coming to stay and you and I both know that’s not going to happen. Who has to pick up the pieces, Allison?”

“Patrick,” she starts, and Diego is there and she just holds on.

“No,” he says. “I let you have these phone calls. You don’t see the aftermath. It upsets her. She wets the bed.”

“She...” Allison trails off.

“Every time near enough,” Patrick bites out. “Oh hey sweetheart! Thank you.” She hears Claire in the background again. “Want to say goodbye to Mom? Then we can go out for pancakes.”

“Okay,” Claire says, distant, and then she has the handset. “Bye Mom!” She says. “Love you!”

“I love you too, baby,” Allison says, feeling distant and shock-like. “Be good for your Dad.” She hangs up before she can get a response to that.

“You okay?” Diego asks, after a long minute where she kind of starts crying against the wall.

“No, dumb _shit_,” she snaps at him, but he just sighs and puts a hand on her shoulder.

“What do you need?” He asks, because they’re better, they’re learning, Allison is starting to feel like they’re cushioning something over the wreck of their childhood – and it’s not really good enough, but she can’t find out who she is and be reduced to ‘Mom’ at the same time. She never got a real identity the first time around. ‘Mom’ was another attempt to escape. She can’t do this.

“I heard a rumor that your problems went away and you were magically better,” Diego drawls, glib, and despite herself she laughs wetly at the wall.

“Prick,” she tells him.  
  
“Yup,” he agrees.

“So I was thinking about going to France,” she tells Klaus, later that evening, and she really should not be telling Klaus any of this because unlike Diego he wears his trauma on his sleeve and, she’s learned, can’t compartmentalize for shit. But she’s selfish.

“Oh la la,” Klaus responds, looking up at her from the couch. “For ma petite niece?”

Allison shrugs, still unhappy about the phone call.

“And le connard?” Klaus adds with a wink, and Allison doesn’t know what that means.

“Do you think I should?” She asks, and dear God she has gotten weak. Time was she would have had the confidence and done anything she wanted. Now – now, urgh. Working through her shit, even just by herself, without a therapist – but at least she’s being honest about things this time – is awful. She can’t deal with the most mundane things. Making decisions isn’t the half of it.

“Do you want to?” Klaus says, lifting his head up to balance it on his elbow. “Seems like a simple problem.”

“It does,” Allison agrees, and then says, a little abrupt maybe, “I’m going out for a bit,” and picks up her training bag and heads to purge these damned emotions at the therapeutic space that is the dirty, messy, judgement free gym.

“You wanna talk about it?” Diego says, while she’s holding a bag for him while he practices his two step moves. He doesn’t sound like _he_ wants to talk about it, so it’s a nice gesture, she thinks.

The gym is fairly empty. Her brother had been doing a met-con before she turned up, and Allison’s life is such now that she knows what the heck that even is. He’d finished and asked her to spot a bag.

The rhythmic thudding is grounding.

“God, no,” Allison sighs, glad that they aren’t even really looking at each other as they talk.

“Gonna call Luther or something then?” He says, landing one slightly askew, wobbling, correcting himself.

“No?” Allison says, confused. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Yeah, with me,” Diego says, and he’s definitely not looking at her now. “You should talk about it with someone though. Seems like a big deal.”

Allison drops the bag, which makes him stumble, which makes him kick out at her in annoyance. “What the hell?” He grumbles.

“I talk to you,” she tells him, unreasonably pissed off. “I talk to you about all kinds of shit. I talk to you about shit I don’t want to put on Klaus. I’ve told you shit I’ve never told anybody else.”

“Alright,” he’s holding his hands up now, looking slightly wary. “Just asking, Jesus.”

“You think I actually want to talk to somebody about what a crappy Mother I am?” She continues, genuinely angry now. “How unfair it is – do you know what being pregnant is like? What _birth_ is like? Didn’t I do enough? You know I still have nightmares-” she cuts herself off abruptly, steps back a few paces. Diego looks downright alarmed.

“You never talk about it,” he says, after a minute. “I just think…” He stops.

“What?” Allison bites out.

“Maybe you should.”

“Nobody else does. Why do I have to?”

Surprise, surprise. Allison has nightmares that night. About giving birth. Except she’s not giving birth to Claire, this time, she’s giving birth to a strange, vaguely alien version of Patrick. And the doctors aren’t listening to her, and the midwife is shoving her hand inside her, and she feels so out of control that she can’t speak, because Vanya cut her throat, remember, and it’s a nightmare, it’s a nightmare, it’s-

When she wakes up, she’s soaked through with sweat. The covers are drenched.

Allison strips and heads to the closet where she pulls out the first things she finds that feel like clothes. Then she strips the comforter back. Then she leaves the room and peeks in on where Diego is usually not sleeping, at night anyway, – except, fuck, tonight he is.

Oh well.

They’re siblings again, now. And her sheets are currently disgusting.

Allison slides into bed next to her brother.

She wakes up on her own. She feels disgusting, sticky and gross and stinky. She stays in Diego’s bed anyway, even though she’s distantly ashamed of what he’ll think.

Around mid morning, she drags herself out. As she opens the door she sees Klaus’ curly mop pop up from the couch, and he looks at her and then abruptly looks away. She can’t tell what his expression means, because he’s decidedly ignoring her. His neck is tense.

Allison feels too disgusting to go after Klaus right now, she can’t help him when she feels like this. She heads for the shower.

She calls Vanya around lunch.

“Hey,” her sister says. “Sorry, I have a student coming over in ten -”

“Oh,” Allison says, immediately, “no, it’s okay. It’s not important,” as her stomach sinks a little. “Just wondered if you wanted to do lunch or something, sometime.”

“Yeah absolutely,” Vanya tells her, and they hedge around nothing for a minute and then Vanya has to go. Allison leans her head against the wall once she’s hung up.

She thinks about writing to Claire, instead. It seems like it might be a better idea than calling if she’s upsetting her so much. Then again, Claire didn’t sound upset on the phone. Allison doesn’t have anybody else to ask about it to confirm or deny; it’s not like Patrick’s parents would speak to her. He has a sister in a nearby village who has kids who must see Claire but – Allison never met her. Never found the time to go to Les Gets. Never deigned to meet Patrick’s French family, let alone make friends. Hell, she barely had time for her own daughter some months.

It should have been a red flag. In hindsight, everything should have been a red flag.

The bad press had died down after a while, like Vanya had said it would. Allison and her management team worked out a lay-low hiatus plan, and some fresh new faces had come to the agency in the mean time and she wasn’t quite redundant yet but she still wasn’t causing anywhere near the level of drama to engage the tabloids any more, which was a good balance. It meant no press but also no panic about press. With their father’s inheritance besides she doesn’t actually _need_ to work again, even after the divorce settlement and the voluntary ongoing child support.

And balancing that with splitting the cost of living with two brothers – even their three bed apartment isn’t making a dent.

And it’s not like any of them ever splash out on anything.

Speaking of. Plane tickets are expensive.

“Hey Klaus,” she tries, as he disappears around a corner into his room.

“Hum?” He says, half way through the door, not looking at her.

“Would you… would you ever want to go to France?” She says, not sure why she does. To her surprise, he snorts.

“Family holiday?” He says, and she frowns because it sounds a little bitter and not really like him.

“Sure,” she tries, light, figuring maybe he’s just in a bad mood.

“Maybe.” He says, flat. He looks like he’s going to say something else for a second, and then disappears into his bedroom, pulling the door closed.

It’s not like him at all, but everybody has bad days. Allison knows. They’re working through things. Shaking up their own fragile little heads. She can give him space.

She takes a cab over to the academy, thinking about Grace for some reason. When she gets to the door, she’s greeted by Five who has a drink in his hand and a sour expression on his face.

“Oh,” he says, sounding glum. “Thought you were somebody else.”

“Are you drunk?” Allison asks him.

“Yes,” he responds, grumpy, already walking away.

“What’s up?” She calls, but he just ignores her and wanders off. Allison shrugs it off, goes in search of Luther.

She finds him outside underneath the big oak tree, sitting with his legs crossed. He looks sort of peaceful. She feels almost bad for intruding.

Not bad enough not to approach, though, and she kind of stomps through the grass as she comes towards him in the hopes that he’ll hear and she won’t have to call out.

He does. Luther opens his eyes, looks at her. He looks happy to see her, like always. “Allison,” he says. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she tells him. “Mind if I join you?”

“Oh.” He looks surprised for some reason. “Sure.”

She sits cross legged at his side. “What are you up to?” She asks.

For some reason he looks a little shifty. Then he looks down. Then she understands why, when he says, “sometimes I come out here and think about talking to Dad.”

Allison blinks at him.

“Don’t, uh.” Luther looks away. “Don’t tell anyone. Please. I know that not everybody would understand.”

“I, uh.” Allison blinks. “I’m not sure I do?”

“I miss him,” Luther says, simply. “I mean. I have so many questions that I wish I could have asked him, and now I can’t and I just. Find it helpful to imagine talking to him.”

“Is this...” Allison looks around. “Is this ‘the spot’? Under the tree? You mentioned at his… uh, funeral?”

“He liked it out here,” Luther confirms, sad. “He would stand out here and just look out across the view. It seemed to help him make big decisions.”

“It’s okay that you miss him,” Allison blurts. “He was. More your father than mine towards the end. I think.”

“No he wasn’t,” Luther argues, frowning. “He’s… it doesn’t matter. If you didn’t speak to him. Or agree with him. He was still all of our father.”

“Luther,” Allison begins, carefully now. “It’s not… that I didn’t agree with him. Well,” she amends. “I mean, it was. But not… you’re making it sound like a difference of opinion. Not like it… like it actually was.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Luther says, and he’s not doing it on purpose, she knows, he’s just genuinely _not_ getting what she means.

“Alright,” Allison tries, and thinks of Claire, and feels a little sick and abruptly realizes why it’s so important that they actually have this conversation for once. “So Dad never made you feel like. Like you were in physical danger,” she decides to start with, because it’s easy.

“Um,” Luther frowns. “We used to fight criminals. Our whole lives were about being in physical danger.”

“No, that’s not.” Allison breathes out. “Physical danger at home, I mean.”

“What like… are you talking about training?”

“Yeah, I guess. Not everybody had the same ‘training’,” she says, still being very very careful.

“I know I – look, what does this have to do with anything? Why do you want to talk about that?” Luther says suddenly, and his jaw is tight and he’s looking away from her and okay, maybe this isn’t straightforward at all and she is in no way qualified to get into this. She doesn’t know what it will mean for Luther, either, and that’s a foreign thought. Time was, she thought she would be able to guess anything about him.

“I’m sorry for bringing it up,” Allison backtracks. “If sitting out here thinking about him brings you peace then I wish you well with it. For as long as you want to do it.” She thinks of Diego, abruptly, if it’d been him in her place trying to have this conversation. They would have been hitting each other by now. “Do you want to come over some time?” She changes tack, instead. “For dinner? Or just… to hang?”

For some reason he looks surprised. “With… all of you?” He says, and Allison thinks, for fucks sake.

“Yes,” she confirms, smiling. “The guys miss you. You should spend time together.”

“Okay,” he says, and then she doesn’t know what she wants to say and Luther shuts his eyes again and she just watches him, thinks about how they all have their own shit that they aren’t sharing. They sit in companionable silence.

Dinner back at the apartment that evening is subdued. Klaus seems off, still, picking at his food and not really talking. Diego kicks him once under the table to try and engage with him, and then gives up. Klaus disappears into his bedroom before they can talk about what to do after the food is gone.

“Should we worry?” Allison says, finishing her food, looking at his closed door. Diego shrugs.

Luther stops by a week or so later, and Allison’s been at the gym and the laundromat mostly and has to speed clean the apartment a half hour before he turns up. It’s something else, not having a cleaner. Diego and Klaus don’t seem to see dirt or mess and it’s usually her that ends up doing a half-arsed job of it. Consequently, most of the high surfaces are covered in dust at this point. Allison guiltily toys with the idea of asking Grace to stop by.

“Hey,” Luther says, bringing in a bag.

“Hey,” she tells him.

“What’s up, man,” Diego waves en route to the shower, having taken his sweet time unpacking his gym stuff while Allison threw the dirty socks that seemed to gravitate to the couch into the hamper, and stacked the dishwasher with all the random crockery lying around.

“Are you showering _now_?” She calls after him.

“Yup,” he informs her, closing the door.

“Okay, I guess we can wait a little bit later to order. It’s not like Klaus is here anyway.”

Luther unpacks his bag into the fridge. There is a clink of glass as he tries to move stuff around. “You guys have a lot of food,” he says, sounding almost surprised.

“Yeah, Diego _eats_,” Allison tells him, because boy does he ever. Klaus picks, Allison watches her portion sizes and tries to stay away from the snacks. Diego follows a _plan_. It’s the most organised she’s ever seen him about anything, ever. “He started on this six meals a day thing about a month after we moved in here.”

“His shirts are gonna stop fitting him if he carries on like that,” Luther mutters, closing the door. Allison blinks.

“He trains pretty hard,” she says, lightly, just as the front door opens.

“Oh, shit, hi,” Klaus says, waving at them, “are we doing a thing?” He throws his shoes haphazardly across the welcome mat and his coat and bag end up in a pile a couple of feet further in.

“Yeah, take out night remember?” Allison says, carefully, because he hasn’t really been as friendly as usual towards her since… she’s not sure. It hasn’t been that long. They’ve been busy. He’s probably fine.

“Alrighty,” Klaus claps, jovial, and it’s okay, he seems fine. “Let me go change!”

And Allison rolls her eyes as another brother disappears behind a closed door.

“Drink?” Luther says, seeming unconcerned, gesturing to the bottles he’d unloaded into the fridge.

Diego is done in around fifteen minutes and comes out of the bathroom fully dressed and toweling off his hair. He throws the wet towel over the back of the couch when he’s done. Allison tries to stare at him in a scolding manner, but he seems more preoccupied with Luther, who is trying to hand him a beer.

“Why would you bring that over?” Diego says. “Could you not?”

“What? It’s just beer,” Luther says, confused, and it clicks for Allison and she looks guiltily at the open bottle in her own hand.

“And your brother’s just an addict,” Diego tells him, rather coldly, and slams the fridge door open to grab one of his zero carb sodas.

“Klaus? He’s been to rehab, he’s done with that,” Luther frowns at him, like Diego has said something offensive.

“Right because that magically cures him of his substance abuse issues,” Diego folds his arms now, looks Luther in the eye. “You’re testing him, man. That shit’s not fair.”

“What are you talking about?” Luther says, as Klaus walks out of his bedroom and ignores the conversation entirely.

Allison finishes her own bottle swiftly and makes for the recycling box.

“Klaus, do you want a beer?” Luther says, staring directly at Diego.

Klaus, seemingly oblivious to the argument around him, just shrugs. “Beer not really my thing,” he says. “Next time bring something classy. Like a reisling. Or schnapps.”

“You’re such a dick,” Diego directs to Luther, and Allison snaps,

“Guys. Look at the take out menu. Please.”

They order Indian with no further issues. It’s actually fairly pleasant once Diego has stopped side eyeing Luther’s beer. Allison kind of wants another, is enjoying the relaxing effects it’s having, but she won’t now. Besides, the food is good.

It’s all smooth sailing and they end up migrating to the TV afterwards where there’s a TV movie starting, and it seems normal and domestic and Allison thinks, this is it, this is nice, this is what I wanted.

The movie unfortunately turns out to have been a terrible idea. The criminal mastermind was an abused child who gets sympathy from the law abiding protagonist but is still a tragic failure of a person, and better yet they have a kid who they are repeating the same pattern of abuse with. Allison wants to turn it off almost immediately on catching on to the plot. The guys don’t seem to think anything about what’s on screen is upsetting or weird, though, so she leaves it.

At one point, somebody gives birth in a flashback, and it’s terribly unrealistic but Diego, for some god only known to him reason, says, “why do women on TV always scream their heads off when they’re giving birth?” and then looks at her and says, “did you scream your head off when you were giving birth?” And then his eyes widen at her expression.

“Yes,” Allison tells him, glad to have an excuse to look away from the movie. “I screamed the place down.”

“Diego,” Klaus scolds, from where he’s ensconced on the floor. “Fancy asking a lady if they screamed their head off giving birth. I imagine it was awful. I wouldn’t want a grapefruit coming out of my nethers, or whatever they say the equivalent is for the men folk.”

“Is it that bad?” Luther says, looking unduly concerned.

“It was the single most traumatic event I’ve ever experienced. Thanks for asking,” Allison says, shortly, because – her _brothers_. Wow.

“The most? Like, ever?” That seams to have piqued Klaus’ interest though. “I mean, over and above _all_ the things from our tragic childhoods?”

Luther snorts.

“Pretty much,” Allison says, as Diego says,

“What was that for?” to Luther.

“What?” Luther says. “Nothing.”

“Giving birth was worse than anything Reg could come up with. Wow,” Klaus seems to marvel.

“Really,” Diego says to Luther, flat.

“How does the human race propagate? Women are unsung heroes! You deserve medals just for being ladies, Jesus Christ,” Klaus continues, tipping his head back at her, and she feels a pang. She’s missed him. He’s been so distant for the past week or so, and she’s really, really missed him. She smiles at his upside down face.

“Do you have a problem?” Luther says to Diego, and Allison abruptly sits back up.

“Yeah,” Diego nods, calmly. “Stop belittling the child abuse.”

Everybody is abruptly quiet. Allison feels like her jaw snaps shut, even though she wasn’t speaking.

“Ooooookay,” Klaus is saying, getting up. “I’m going to just. Be. Um.” And he retreats, and Allison watches him shut his bedroom door, and the movie is still playing, and that went bad. Fast. Jesus. Christ.

“Can you not be so dramatic?” Luther says, staring after Klaus. “What’s – you know what? Never mind.”

“Who’s being dramatic?” Diego asks, fully focused on his brother now.

“’Child abuse’? Come on,” Luther says, and Allison wants to scream danger, Will Robinson, because that’s a reference that she knows Diego will get and she will get and Luther will get, and oh God. She can’t say anything. She’s paralyzed.

“Child. Abuse. What the fuck else do you call it?” Diego asks, too calm – how is he so calm? He looks like a cat again, Allison thinks. He’s about to do something really fucking cruel if she doesn’t butt in.

“Don’t _say_ that – Dad did his best,” Luther starts, and she can’t.

“Luther,” Allison says, quickly. “Don’t.”

His head swivels to look at her. “Right,” he says, after a moment. Then he takes a breath and looks straight ahead and says, “I just think you’re being pretty ungrateful.”

Diego just stares at him in her periphery.

Luther says, “Because of Dad you and me and all of us can do whatever we want now. We don’t have to get jobs or worry about money or any of that stuff. You can just do what you want and pretend you’re independent and hate Dad because yeah, okay, he was such a monster, but you’re still living off of him even though he’s dead. He built us a legacy. So what if he didn’t want to say goodnight a few times. He was busy. Making shit for us.”

Allison looks at her other brother and – Diego does not look great. Diego looks – he looks grey, like his skin is losing color.

“Diego,” she says, low, and he turns his head maybe too fast, but she needs to do something now, she should have done something before they started watching the fucking movie.

“I’m done,” he says, before she can think about what to say, and he’s up, he’s going to his room, and he’s closing the door behind him. Allison hears a thud, like he’s sat back against it to keep it shut.

“Luther,” she tries.

“Don’t bother,” Luther says, suddenly. “I can’t do anything right. I don’t look right, I can’t talk right. I’m not in your little ‘Dad sucks’ club because I’m not doing that right either.”

“What’s gotten into you? And – Luther, he was awful to them,” Allison bites out, absently thinks, coward, why can’t you say ‘us’?

“He sent me on a mission that nearly killed me and then destroyed my body and left me on the moon for four years because he didn’t want to look at it,” Luther snaps right back. “I’m just the only one who isn’t lying to myself about the privilege and the house and the money. You still want that even if you want to talk about how mean and nasty he was.”

“Luther,” Allison says, and then she has absolutely no idea what to say.

“No,” Luther stops her short. “Have fun playing at being victims.” And he gets up, and he leaves, and Allison is left on the couch and the fucking movie is still fucking playing. She wants to throw the controller at the screen. She doesn’t. She turns it off, pads over to Klaus’ bedroom, knocks. Gets no answer. Goes to Diego’s door. Knocks. Gets no answer.

Goes to her own bedroom. Fishes a bottle of mezcal out from underneath the bed, where she’s been saving it for – she has no idea, to be honest, and her subconscious knew to keep it out of the kitchen and away from Klaus so why the fuck didn’t she? Why didn’t she?

It tastes awful, but she’s not a drinker, and two pulls are all she needs to just lie down and hope everything goes away.

The morning feels a little better, she thinks. The bottle of mezcal sits on her nightstand, nearly full, and she sighs.

Shower, routine. Allison eats. Klaus’ door is open. He’s gone out. Diego’s is not. He might still have gone out.

Allison hits the gym.

She comes home and finds her brother on the couch, half empty bottle of mezcal in his hand.

It’s really not the brother she would have called it on. Klaus’ bedroom is still open and empty.

“Di,” she says, because it feels like a short name kind of situation. “Hey. You’re drinking? It’s four in the afternoon. What’s going on?”

He’s scrunched up in one corner, leans into her hands where she accidentally touched his face.

“Did I imagine it?” He slurs. “Did I imagine all the things he did?”

“No, baby,” Allison says, alarmed. “No, no, is that what you’ve been thinking?”

“If I did then. I don’t know. Stupid.”

“You didn’t imagine shit, okay? You need some water. Hey, you don’t drink. Put that down.”

“But I want to go away,” Diego says, which is simple enough.

“You’re stronger than that,” she tells him, honestly. “It’s hard right now. What got you so bad, huh? You don’t have to tell me.”

“Did he ever used to put things in you?” Diego says, and Allison feels cold, feels her heart like it’s going to beat out of her chest suddenly, as Diego continues, “anywhere I mean, your mouth… anywhere else, just to see how you worked? I think.” He looks down at the bottle he’s holding. “Fuck,” he says.

Allison can’t move or breathe for a second, and she abruptly feels like she’s on fire with grief and heartbreak and something else that she doesn’t know the name for. And then she finds herself taking the mezcal, taking a big swig. It burns.

“Come to bed,” she gasps after the drink has gone down. “Come to bed. Everything will be okay.”

“Never is,” Diego says, and she takes another huge swig, as much as she can bear, and gets to her feet to pull him up before it hits her system.

“Bed,” she says. “We’ll be okay.” She hopes, very much, that it’s true.

So she hits Diego’s bed with Diego. She wants to check on him, make sure he doesn’t puke. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen him drink before, and he obviously has no tolerance to speak of.

He’s snuffling before she’s got a handle on the covers, moves clumsily to get underneath them. As soon as his face is in a pillow he appears to be out for the night. It’s not even dinner time. Allison wonders if she should have put him in the recovery position.

She drifts off on top of the covers. When she wakes up, it’s because the front door is closing. There’s no light coming through the curtains.

The smell of the mezcal on the bedside table makes guilt drift to the surface and she moves it to the floor.

Was Luther right? That was the question. He hadn’t been lying, she can’t imagine how hard it must have been on the moon, alone, for four miserable years – people in prison aren’t allowed to be left in solitary for anything nearing that, and they didn’t have imminent death hovering over them if they forgot part of their maintenance routine or their cell failed or –

Fuck. Luther has every right to feel how he wants, she knows.

But why does she feel so fucking guilty about everything he’s said?

She pulls the mezcal back up and takes a couple more pulls. Just this once. She wants to go to sleep.

At some point Allison realizes she did fall asleep, because it’s late morning. Her mouth is so dry. She’s been in bed more than fourteen hours. Diego is still asleep. Except, he isn’t, not really.

“Hey,” she tries. “How are you feeling?”

He stays where he is, eyelids heavy looking. He somehow looks too tired to be awake.

“How are you doing?” She tries again, but he just shuts his eyes.

“I’ll get you some water,” she tells him, not sure what else to do. She uses the bathroom and comes back with water and a pre-prepared meal from the stack in the fridge. Just greens. Light. Like he eats in the morning.

She gets no reaction out of him.

“Okay,” Allison says. “I’ll leave you. For a bit. If you want to get up there’s food. Just let me know.”

No response.

Klaus gives her a strange look the next morning when she walks back into Diego’s bedroom again, with fresh water and a different meal. He hadn’t eaten yesterdays.

She doesn’t want to talk about what Luther said. So she doesn’t say anything.

And life goes on.


	2. Chapter 2

Klaus leaves early, sometimes gone overnight. Diego doesn’t seem to want to talk to her. Allison kids herself into thinking that they both need space and retreats to the gym.

In a week she loses two pounds and takes a full four minutes off her five-K.

It feels like shit. Something has to give.

She bumps into Klaus leaving at 8am after getting in at 6am, and he doesn’t look like he’s been partying, but he does just raise a hand her way without looking at her, and.

At this point, Klaus has been off for _weeks_, and between him and Diego, who barely makes it out of bed right now unless it’s to the gym for three straight hours, alone, Allison feels like she’s going to snap.

So she does.

“Klaus, for fucks sake,” she starts, and he looks startled and defensive, and she backtracks. “What did I do?” She asks, desperately, practically pulling out the hair that she has left on the one side. “What did I do Klaus, I’m sorry whatever it was, just please tell me, okay? I thought we were okay?”

He takes a breath, and she thinks he’s going to brush it off. But then – “I just can’t handle it,” Klaus says, all calmly, and he actually looks at her, and he hasn’t for a while, and she feels it like a laser. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Handle what?” She pleads, thinking – was it the beer? Diego drinking? Is there a new ghost? Has something else happened that she doesn’t know about?

“I’m happy for you,” Klaus says, looking closed off. “I mean. I am. I don’t get it and I think it’s fucked up but we have problems. I just.”

“What?” Allison is so not following. She can’t begin to grasp what he’s talking about.

“Just.” Klaus gestures to Diego’s bedroom door. “Hey. Does Luther know?”

“Know _what_?” Allison all but yells. “Klaus, what is going on with you? I’m so worried you have no idea, and this cryptic bullshit-”

“My sister and brother are shacking up and I can’t be in a shit mood about it?” Klaus yells back, and Allison stares at him.

“Oh my God,” she says, sudden horror overtaking her. “_Vanya_? What?” Luther? _Five_? Oh God!

“What?” Klaus stares at her like she’s gone insane. She might have done. Vanya – Allison didn’t see it coming. “No, you _moron_,” Klaus grinds out. “You and Diego! Right here, in our goddamn apartment!”

“Me and Diego what?” Is Allison’s first distracted comment, still reeling about Vanya. And then - “Oh, Klaus, no! You fucking – no! That is not – no!” Her face must be fairly demonstrative, because Klaus suddenly looks horribly confused.

“But you...” he trails off. “Wait,” he says. “You… why are you both in Diego’s bed all the time?”

“He’s _depressed_,” Allison shouts, unwittingly. “He’s depressed, horrible shit happened to him just like it happened to all of us and he’s fucking depressed, and I am trying so hard just to make him eat and drink, which you’d know if you were ever here, and you are ignoring me and acting like you’re mad at me, and I’ve pissed Luther off, and God, Vanya isn’t sleeping with him or Five, please tell me she isn’t?”

Klaus, for his part, looks suddenly horrified. “Oh no,” he says, hands covering his mouth. And then, to his side, “oh nooooo.”

“Oh no what,” Allison snaps. “Oh my God, is that why you’ve been avoiding me?”

“I… may have been lodging elsewhere on occasion due to, uh, yes,” Klaus says, hands coming up to his hair. “You’re not fucking with me? You and Diego…?”

“He’s our _brother_,” Allison wants to scream, but manages to say at an ordinary volume.

“So is Luther,” Klaus counters, and Allison wants to punch him.

“I have never, ever, ever slept with Luther,” she says, “I have never kissed Luther, I have never held Luther’s hand with… god damn… _intent_. I don’t care what fucked up little ideas go on in here-” shit, shit, stop flapping a hand at his head, she thinks, Klaus is beginning to look defensive and small, again, “I’m overreacting,” she corrects herself, still mad, “but I’m hurt that you thought that, and your brother really needs you right now, and are you okay? I was beginning to really worry that something was going on we didn’t know about, you just shut yourself away-”

She has an armful of Klaus, suddenly, and curly hair is going up her nose.

“I’m sorry,” Klaus says into her neck, holding on tight. She squeezes him right back. “I’m so stupid, I thought I was being left out, again, and I just – what’s wrong with Diego?” He draws back suddenly. Allison smooths down his hair, just viscerally relieved after weeks of tension.

“He’s depressed,” she repeats. “I mean… I don’t mean sad, I mean he’s depressed as hell. If he’s not at the gym he’s acting like he’s asleep. I don’t know what to do.”

“You really aren’t...” Klaus trails off with an obscene hand gesture.

“No,” says Allison, unnecessarily firm she thinks but wow. Klaus thought it in the first place, so.

“I...” Klaus looks at the closed bedroom door. Despite the paneling, Diego likely heard all of that. Good, Allison thinks. Nobody has to explain it twice.

“If you have any idea how to help, get in there, _please_,” Allison says. “I need backup.”

Just as she’s finished, there’s a knock on the door. Klaus walks away from her, backwards, opens Diego’s door. He closes it once he’s inside, leaving her to deal with whoever is knocking.

Allison prepares her ‘go away’ face, anticipating an erroneous apartment visitor or something.

She pulls the door a half foot open, peers out.

“Hi,” Five says, which she did not expect at all, and wrong foots her into losing all her manners and just staring down at him.

“Hi,” Allison returns.

“I’ve been here a few minutes,” Five informs her. “So I know all the essentials of your domestic.”

Right. She can’t. Allison remembers herself. Backs up. Slams the door in his face.

When she turns back into the apartment, Five appears in front of her in a flash of blue.

“Nice,” he says, gesturing to the door. “Lovely greeting. I can see why Luther feels so welcome.”

“Five,” Allison grits her teeth. She takes a deep breath. He’s her brother. She loves him. Shit. What about Luther? “Is Luther okay? Did he tell you what… happened?”

Five snorts. “No,” he says, and Allison is sort of surprised, sort of still feeling keyed up from talking to Klaus. “He’s just been moping around the house for weeks, and you aren’t visiting and he’s not calling you to cheer himself up.”

“He what?” Oh shit. She’d thought… she doesn’t know what she’d thought.

She wasn’t thinking.

Oh Luther.

Selfish sack of shit, she thinks about herself, viciously, and Five bizarrely reaches out to her then, looking concerned, says,

“This is all a big dumb family misunderstanding, isn’t it,” and for all he’d looked concerned his tone is condescending as fuck.

“What are you talking about?” Allison asks, miserably.

“I’ll go fetch him. Get Diego out of bed. I’ll call Vanya. We should do this here. I can’t believe that we saved the world and still can’t manage to communicate like adults.”

“Five,” Allison says, warning tone, panicking somewhat. “No. Whatever you think you’re doing-”

And he’s gone again, another flash of blue.

Allison wants to throw something.

She speed cleans the apartment, instead, wonders how they’ve been so absent and still managed to leave shit everywhere.

When the first knock on the door comes, she knows instinctively it’s not one of her brothers, and that’s what has her striding to open it, looking desperately for an ally.

“Allison,” Vanya beats her to the greeting. “Are you okay? Five said – well, he was kind of rude, actually. He said to come here right now, though. Do you need anything? Can I help with-”

Allison cuts her off with a hug. Not one of her quiet, happy, fake hello hugs. A desperate attempt at comfort from a sister a foot shorter than she is.

It’s ridiculous and clearly alarming to Vanya, and very very selfish, and she backs up almost immediately.

“Are you okay?” Vanya asks, slowly. “What the hell happened?”

“I don’t-” Allison wants to not even think about it, but, bizarrely synchronized, the sounds of Luther and Five approaching have her backing up, back into her own apartment.

Vanya looks her up and down, and her jaw sets suddenly.

“Five,” she snaps, looking back out the door where the two of them appear to have just appeared. “What are you doing?”

“I told you,” Five squares up to her, and Vanya holds her ground, which is new, but also this is Five squaring up to _Vanya_, and it’s a bizarre picture all around. “I didn’t spend forty years in my own personal hell to get back to a bunch of dysfunctional morons who don’t talk to each other. This is fixable. I can fix this. It just needs some choice words.”

“No,” Vanya says, looking at him. “That’s not how people work. You can’t just… what even happened here?” She moves her eyes to Luther, who is standing back from the doorway looking… miserable, Allison thinks aghast.

“Luther,” she says without meaning to, because he looks so, so sad. Kind of like how Diego looks now that he’s in bed all the time but like he’s actually trying to hide it, unlike his brother.

“See,” Five tells Vanya, pointing between them while Luther doesn’t look at her. “Trust me.”

Vanya looks at him for a minute and then swallows, visibly. “Do not fuck this up,” she says, low.

“Promise,” Five says, soft, looking her right in the eye and for fucks sake, he’s always been absolutely soft for Vanya. He could cripple the rest of them as well as they can cripple each other with hard words and barbed jabs, but never ever Vanya. Allison rolls her eyes.

“Fine,” she says, “come in. You have twenty minutes. If you make anything worse I’ll stab you.”

“Alright Dieg-” Five starts, and trails off at whatever is on her face. “Alright,” he amends. “I’m sorry. Let’s sit down.”

“Vanya,” Allison says, then. “They’re – Klaus and Diego. In there. Please. Be… kind.”

Vanya looks surprised, and then wary. “Me?” She says. “You don’t think you should-”

“No, Vanya, honestly. It’s fine,” Allison tries to reassure, probably doing a shit job. Vanya tentatively knocks on Diego’s door, pushing it open after a moment and closing it behind her. Allison breathes out, looks at Five, looks at Luther.

“Don’t make this worse,” she tells Five, and then, to Luther,

“Are you okay?” And walks towards him, and to her surprise he backs up. She holds her hands up, can’t pretend she’s not a little devastated.

They sit down.

Vanya reappears, shakes her head. She looks… Allison doesn’t know that expression. Forlorn. A little ashamed for some reason. “Don’t push it,” she tells Five. “Just say what you want to us and… and...” She falters. “Just don’t push it,” she repeats.

“Fine,” Five says, looking annoyed. “Okay. Luther cuts himself.”

Silence abruptly descends on the four of them.

“What,” Vanya says, first, while Luther stares at a spot in the corner of the room looking mortified, and Allison can’t find any words.

“Big surprise,” Five continues, like it’s no big deal. “He spent four years in isolation. That messes with your brain chemistry, for one,” he says, and oh, he would know. “I, for example,” he continues, yep, “experience paranoid delusions at times. I think it’s closer to OCD than psychosis but it’s not productive to be wondering whether there are intruders in the house at all hours when I could be working through actual important problems. It’s annoying.”

“Oh my God,” Vanya breathes. “Why… are… Five.” She doesn’t seem to have anything to say that Five thinks is important though, because he carries on,

“Diego is apparently too depressed to get out of bed. That’s not uncommon following reminders of childhood trauma, which we are to each other whether we like it or not. Vanya bless you but your book didn’t cover the majority of his ‘special training’; I doubt you would have wanted to be involved. There, now somebody’s said it.” Five rolls his eyes, expression matching his tone. “And Klaus, no different – although if that weren’t obvious from the ongoing substance abuse I’d have to re-evaluate my position on your intellect. And Allison.” He looks at her. “I meant it,” he says, “where were the ethics lessons? Anybody with your power would have done what you did, nobody can think themselves above that and not be deluded. You were a child. It’s not your fault and now look at the guilt you carry.” Allison stares at him, horror and acceptance warring in her mind.

“What the hell is your point,” Vanya all but whispers, looking almost angry at him.

“My _point_,” Five says, looking annoyed as much as anything, “is that we’re a group of emotionally stunted adults with deep seated issues who cannot afford to do shit like this to each other if we want to continue to act like a family.”

Vanya opens her mouth to speak, but Five continues, “and I know, you all went your separate ways, I found out you all just left each other and didn’t talk and didn’t think about whether or not the rest of the family was struggling because all you lot seem capable of thinking about some days is yourselves. Case in point. What I’m saying is you need to fucking stop it. Talk about what you like. Do not abandon what I spent forty years fantasizing about coming back for, I will kill you all.”

They sit in silence for a moment, letting that sink in, Allison supposes.

“I hated it,” Allison blurts, suddenly.

The three of them stare at her.

“I hated being a kid,” she says again. “I wasn’t a person. I don’t know if I’ve ever been one. Everything I did was because I hated where I was. It ruined me and it might have ruined… it might have ruined my daughters life, and I might have passed on everything that ruined me or maybe not, maybe Patrick got in the way.” She stops, looks away. “I never told you,” she says, and she doesn’t look at Luther but she means him. “What he used to do. Dad. I mean. It wasn’t...” she trails off, shuts her eyes. “I keep telling myself it wasn’t actually that bad. But it was. And I can’t talk about it. Ask Diego,” she says, can’t believe she’s saying it. “He’s much, much stronger than me. Ask him.”

“Not fair,” Five counters, immediately. “Not fair at all, Allison,” and she doesn’t really understand what he means.

“Luther,” she says, about to tell him he was kind of right, she’s spoiled and shitty and needs to get over herself.

“Don’t,” Luther says, and she looks at him and sees an expression like he almost knew what she was going to say. “Don’t feel like you have to say that stuff.”

“Five, this is really unfair,” Vanya says, abruptly. Their brother turns to look at her with a frown, but also seemingly waits for her to continue. She does. “You can’t just do things like this. You can’t just shove peoples issues out in the open and think it solves things. This is why therapists have qualifications and spend time getting people to work through their issues safely and in their own time. It might look fine to you right now but you’re not seeing the consequences, you won’t see how everybody copes with this when you’re done.”

Allison stares at her sister. It’s a surprisingly rational point.

“I hear what you’re saying,” Five is saying, patient, and then,

“No,” Vanya interrupts him. “This isn’t okay. You could do a lot of damage right now.”

Luther stands, abruptly.

“What are you doing?” Allison asks, looking over.

“Five’s right,” Luther says, which is utterly not what she was expecting, but he’s striding over to the door to Diego’s room. “This is ridiculous,” he says, raising a hand to knock. “We need to be together. I can’t cope if we’re not. You hear me?” He calls through the wood, unnecessarily. “I’m sorry. Let me in.”

Allison feels her jaw hit the floor.

“Luther,” Vanya says, tone unreadable to Allison, and Five says,

“Okay, see, how was I that wrong?”

“Luther,” Vanya says again, louder.

“I’m sorry I’m an asshole,” Luther says, too loud, Jesus, all the fucking neighbors are going to hear this. “I’m sorry I’m shitty to you. You suck sometimes too, so get up and open the door. I….” he falters, picks himself back up. “I love you. I don’t say it. But you don’t say it.”

Allison wonders suddenly and abruptly whether he’s been drinking.

“Five,” she starts, when the door to Diego’s room is pulled open and Luther is staring at Diego, who is shoved out of the way immediately and replaced with Klaus, who powers up his freaky ghost shit and backs up and – holy cow. There’s Ben. In the doorway.

They all stare.

“Oh thanks a bunch,” Ben’s ghost says, sarcastically. “Nobody sees me outside of that _one time_ for years and then you throw me into this.”

“I panicked,” Klaus’ voice comes through, and,

“What-” Luther starts, but he’s cut off.

“Stop,” Ben says, immediately, and Luther does. “Stop talking. Listen to Vanya.”

Vanya starts in Allison's periphery.

“Ben,” she whispers. Five is staring, just as rapt.

“Listen to Vanya and stop being shit to each other,” Ben says, and just like that he’s gone, and just like that Luther is stepping back, and just like that Diego and Klaus are striding out of the room, each talking at volume.

“I’m guessing Vanya said to shut up with this shit,” Klaus is saying, but he’s spoken over by Diego, who says,

“You need to be together you prick? You do? You can’t have a fucking conversation with me without making some dig-”

And Vanya says, “guys, don’t do this,” and Luther says,

“You never did get when you were being a dick,” and Klaus says,

“You’re really fucking with my mental health plan, guys,” and Diego says,

“Don’t act like you give any shits of any kind,” and Luther says,

“I love you you fucking asshole, you’re my brother,” and Five says,

“Jesus Christ,” almost in awe, the little asshole, and Luther says,

“Fine, it was child abuse, are you happy? I can say it. I was an adult when the worst thing in my life happened to me, and I see it all differently to you I guess partly because of that but I did some reading and what with what Allison’s going through with Claire I guess I was wrong, I didn’t know, I didn’t want to know about what hurt you because it hurts me to know about it, I’m sorry but it’s easier not to know, I didn’t want to know. I want to pretend the bad times never happened.”

Everybody stops talking.

“You’re an absolute dickhead,” Diego says, miserably, after a long minute of silence. “I want to punch the shit out of you.”

“Let me have it,” Luther says, actually getting into a stance like they’re going to fight. Allison opens her mouth to say something.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Klaus beats her to it. “Morons,” he snarls, and shoves at Luther so he falls back a step.

“Fine,” Diego says, “let me get my stuff.”

“Where are you going?” Luther asks, looking alarmed.

“The gym,” Diego says, turning back into the bedroom. “Are you coming or not?”

Klaus throws his hands up. Five is beside him in an instant, reaching up for one. He grabs it, uses it to high five himself.

“You see,” Five says, smug to Klaus’ incredulous expression. “My idea did make sense.”

Diego and Luther do actually go to the gym. Together. Five and Allison and Vanya stay where they are. Klaus flits around the kitchen.

“Yeah no need to tell _me_ that,” Klaus says, even though nobody said anything.

“Do any of you have passports?” Allison asks the collective quiet.

“In what name?” Says Five, which, of course, Five.

“No,” says Vanya, “why?”

“Oh,” Klaus says, “le France?”

“Le France,” Allison confirms, nodding.

Allison books six plane tickets to Geneva. From there it’s a short taxi ride to where she wants to go in France. They could all use a (somewhat enforced) holiday.

The flight to Geneva is long and boring. Allison forgets not everybody is used to that. She feels increasingly guilty as she orders her usual in-flight bloody mary, intended to take the edge off. Luther is obviously uncomfortable despite having been booked across two seats. Klaus has headphones on and is already prodding at the menu on his screen, accidentally elbowing Diego repeatedly. Diego manfully took the aisle seat and threw headphones at Klaus as soon as the booze cart rattled along. Even though they’re in first class this is still a commercial flight and Five and Vanya are the only ones with adequate leg room because they’re so freaking short. Five has a crossword out and Vanya is making notes in a book filled with staves and squiggles. Allison drew the ‘sit next to a stranger’ lottery and immediately felt like an idiot – if she’s recognized Agenese will have her fucking head.

Luckily it’s just some old dude who puts his headphones in straight away and doesn’t look at her twice.

When they finally arrive at their destination, Allison discovers that Morzine is beautiful. It’s also absolutely packed with people on thick set bicycles, who look blissfully unconcerned that the majority of the cycle tracks in the town double as ski slope runs in the winter.

The chalet they have rented for two weeks has four bedrooms, three bathrooms and a jacuzzi.

Vanya and Allison plan to share, but instead of splitting the space like normal people Luther takes the futon in the central living space and Klaus makes a nest out of spare blankets in the tiny little overlook above it. Diego and Five don’t need three bedrooms, so Allison shrugs and she and Vanya get their own rooms after all.

Luther immediately sets about looking for somewhere to hike. Vanya, jet-lagged, begs off. Five opts to further inspect the chalet. Klaus wants to sit out in the jacuzzi the instant he sees it. So it’s just three of them.

“So Patrick’s family live one town over?” Diego queries, as they follow a meandering dirt path through the trees. It’s a little on the steep side, but they’re all in shape. Allison is glad for how much, imagines the trial that would be attempting this with anybody who wasn’t.

“Yeah,” she confirms, admiring the scenery. “Can you imagine growing up here?”

“Does Claire speak French?” Luther asks.

“Yes!” Allison tells him, smiling. “She’s pretty fluent.”

“Do you speak French?” Luther asks, and her smile drops away a little.

“Not a word,” she says, “never uh. Took the time to learn.”

“You’re nothing like _Dad_,” Diego says, abruptly.

I know, Allison wants to say, but she realizes that she doesn’t know that, actually.

“Is that what you think?” Luther asks, voice surprised.

“Listen, you miserable bitch. You’re a good Mom. If you’re anything with her like you are with us, you’re a good Mom.” Diego says, a little tartly.

“I’m a fucking terrible Mom,” Allison says, sniffs as discreetly as she can.

“Miserable bitch, really?” Luther says, sharp, to which Diego responds,

“She called me an asshole five minutes before we left, where’s my defense squad?”

“Oh,” Luther says, and then, “you’re not. An asshole.” Bless him so much for trying, Allison thinks.

But then she blinks, looks up at her brothers. “Yes he is,” she says, and then out of nowhere snort-laughs, because what a ridiculous conversational turn.

“Thanks sis,” Diego stares at her. The corners of his lips are twitching.

“We’re all assholes,” Allison continues, and then just to push it, “Vanya wrote a whole book about it,” and Diego shoves her, hard, and she cracks up.

“Jesus,” Luther says, watching her kick back at Diego, a brief scuffle leaving them on either side of the path. “I just. I can’t tell when you’re being mean and when you’re being stupid to each other.”

A bell sounds from up ahead, rather loudly, and then they have to move in a hurry to get out of the way of a flurry of bicycles.

“That looks kind of fun,” Diego says, looking after them, as they abruptly ride over the steep side of the incline, dropping off down an incredibly steep path marked with a black arrow that Allison had assumed disused.

“It… does,” Luther says, sounding like he’s not sure.

“Where can we get bikes?” Allison asks, eyes wide.

Downhill mountain biking is much, much harder than it looks, Allison rues, from the dirt, on her seventh attempt at beating Diego around a tree. Luther has chosen to start by figuring his bike out on one of the green runs, which. Fine. Maybe he’s the one with sense.

“I’ll get it next time,” Diego says, from where he’s planted off the side of some slippery wood slats ('northshore'?) just ahead. He sucks almost as much as she does. Almost.

“I’ll get _you_ next time,” she says, and drags her bike back up the little hill.

When they make it back to the chalet Klaus makes them shower before they get anywhere near the jacuzzi, which looks ten times more tempting after spending the remainder of the afternoon falling off a bike over and over again. Allison has a couple of hefty scrapes, but nothing near her face. Not that that matters any more, she thinks.

Allison takes the longest to shower and is consequently the last to go outside. On her way to the kitchen for a glass of water first, she passes the telephone in the hallway.

Duty calls. Duty should have been calling already, but she’s good at ignoring things she doesn’t want to deal with.

Patrick picks up after a couple of rings, which is good, and he answers in French, which is strange until she realizes that the other times she’s called have been arranged, he doesn’t know this is her. She might be about to ruin his evening.

“Patrick,” she says, after a beat. “Hi. It’s Allison,” she adds on, not wanting to presume a thing.

“All- what? We don't have a call scheduled,” is his first, clipped comment, which hurts.

“No, it’s not – I wanted to talk to you,” she says. “I have some things I should say and I wanted to do it – look. Please don’t be angry with me. I just. I wanted to speak to you in person.”

“How are you planning on doing that from the states exactly?”

“I uh.” Ah, shit. Fine. Here goes nothing. “I caught a flight over. It’s a coincidence, really, my family are on vacation and it happens to be, uh. Look,” she barrels on, when his silence speaks volumes. “We’re not that close. Close enough to bike over in a day, maybe? But I won’t. I won’t come anywhere near you if you don’t want me to. And-”

The line goes dead. Allison looks at the phone, stares at it in her hand for a moment. Then she replaces it, carefully, on the hook. Wonders how badly she’s managed to fuck up.

After a second, the phone rings.

“Hello?” Allison says, after two trills.

“I’m sorry, but I needed to know, so I recalled your number. That’s close enough Allison. Please.”

“Oh, the area code? I’d – I’d give you the address to the chalet, I’d, I don’t want you to have to worry-”

“Well, too late. What do you want?”

“I want to talk to you about custody.”

“It’s not happening,” he says, immediately.

“No I want to talk to you about signing over my custody,” she blurts out, wholly unaware that that was what she was going to say and somewhat in shock about it.

“You’re -” he says after a long minute. “You’re just giving her up? Just like that?”

Oh for gods _sake_. She doesn’t understand him. She must never have done.

“Not officially,” she says, because she knows what it’s like to know your mother has just signed you over to somebody else, given up on you completely. “Not because I want anything. I just. You know what’s best for her. I don’t. I clearly don’t. And I love her too much to risk screwing up her life.”

He doesn’t speak again for another minute. And then, “changed your tune,” he says, and Allison butts her head against the wall. “Alright, if you’re serious about this I need. I need to think about how to talk to her about it.”

“I’d love to see her,” Allison says, “but if you say it’s not right then I won’t. But just. Tell me she’s happy.”

“Let me… let me think about this. Okay. It’s a lot to think about. This is a massive fucking surprise actually. I just.”

“I know,” Allison says, “but won’t it be good to just. Have a resolution here?”

“If you think that this is a problem you can fix just like that? No, no, you know what. I don’t want to fight. Can… can we speak tomorrow? On this number, at the same time?”

“Yes,” Allison says, nodding, wondering what the fuck she’s doing, absolutely petrified.

“Okay. Goodnight,” he says, and then says something in French and she has no idea what it means, and then he’s gone.

She hangs up the phone, turns around. Five is standing directly across the room from her, expression crumpled. He nods. “You okay?” He asks.

Allison stares at him.

“No,” he says, “of course you’re not. Do you want to talk about it?”

Allison exhales and rubs at her face.

“Okay,” Five says. “Come outside and get in the ridiculous tub with the bubbles. Sit with the people who love you. We’re your family, we’re here for this shit.”

She ends up between Diego and Klaus. Luther is still fully dressed, leaning against the tub next to them. Vanya is in a t-shirt rather than a bikini which Allison thinks is a little strange.

“Are those bullet wounds?” Luther says, suddenly, from where he’s been staring at Diego’s shoulders where they’re visible above the water.

“Now,” Diego says, flat, “you chose now to ask?” But it’s better than talking about what’s up with her, so Allison says,

“Since we moved in he’s only been shot once that I know of,” and she’s looking at Luther reassuringly but next to her Klaus snorts.

“Even I know that’s statistically unlikely,” Vanya says, moving up for Five, who is fiddling with the controls. He is also still fully dressed, on the outside of the tub.

“Hey did we ever tell you about the time he fought a car and won?” Klaus asks, as Luther looks even more horrified, says,

“I thought that was a one-off, I remember that,” and Diego says,

“Don’t make me feel guilty for taking a vacation, please.”

“Oh,” Allison says. “No, sorry.”

“I could come with you,” Luther says. “When we get back. We could work as a team. We work well as a team.”

“That’s a nice idea,” pipes up Five. “Shared interests are important.”

Diego doesn’t answer, which is good. When she looks over, she sees Luther tracing a finger across his bicep almost absently, following a deep, nasty looking scar.

Allison looks back at Klaus, who is stretching his toes up and out of the water and wriggling them. Vanya looks relaxed against Five, who must be getting a little wet, pushed up against her from the outside and examining buttons.

“Is Ben here?” She asks, feeling strangely nostalgic even though they’ve never done this before. Never sat together like this after she’s done something utterly mad that she still hasn’t told them about.

“Hmm?” Klaus looks surprised to be asked. “Yeah, why?”

They all look at him.

“Really?” Allison says, tearing up out of nowhere, emotions from the phone call and having them all together and fucking everything lately just overtaking her suddenly.

“Yeeees,” Klaus drags it out. “Why, did you want a séance? He’s usually hanging around. Big dead loser that he is, said with love,” he directs to his left outside of the tub, blowing a kiss.

“No, it’s just nice to know he’s still here,” Allison says, “hanging around. With us.”

“Oh,” Klaus says. “Well. Sappy bastard’s happy to be wanted.”

It's okay. She can breathe.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uh. I tried. :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I make no sense or a shit ton of mistakes? Probably. Nobody else has ever read this because I still have no friends (what a shocker! Alert the news). Tell me about the shitty parts to save other people (if anybody reads this and cares lol). Mwah mwah.

The next day, Vanya gets a bicycle. She goes to the green runs with Luther. They talk about uplifts and getting passes. Five picks up a bike and follows Diego to the ‘fun run’ in the forest he kept injuring himself on yesterday. Allison is abruptly afraid to go out in case she bumps into Patrick or anybody Patrick knows that knows her, and wonders why she didn’t think of this first. She stays behind ostensibly to sunbathe. Klaus joins her on the deck with a parasol he must have found somewhere; he cannot possibly have brought the thing over with his luggage.

They lounge a while.

“Allison, dear heart. You seem morose,” Klaus says, after a while.

“Sorry,” she tells him immediately. “You don’t have to hang out if it’s uh. You know.”

“Oh no,” he says. “Also Ben insists on sticking around in case you say any more nice things about him. Such a diva. So fond of attention – what?” He swats at nothing, next to him, and Allison thinks that he never usually talks about Ben or any ghosts like this, so casually. Something has changed.

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you,” she says. “In the past. When you talked about Ben. Were you ever lying?”

“Nope,” Klaus says, stretching out like a cat even though he’s in the shade. “No reason to lie. You can shut up,” he swats again.

“He’s just right there,” Allison says, staring.

“Pew pew!” Klaus says, miming a gun, and then his hands and wrists glow blue and Ben – Ben is there, again, except…

He’s got his hands over his face like he’s embarrassed.

“Ben,” she breathes, taking him in.

“Oh my god I’m not a diva okay it’s just nice to be acknowledged sometimes, but I’m dead so don’t waste your day on me or anything, I just, oh god Klaus why,” Ben says, quietly dramatic as ever, and Allison loves him so much.

“You look really good,” Allison tells him.

“For a dead guy,” Klaus says, and Allison stares at him in horror. “What?” Klaus says. “It’s true!”

“I just...” Allison doesn’t actually know what to say. Beyond, she guesses, ‘it is’.

“Ignore him,” Ben says, “those are my usual tactics.”

“Lies and slander,” Klaus says immediately, but he’s smiling a bit and so is Ben, looking at him, and it hits Allison then exactly how different their relationship has been for the past decade or so while the rest of them were just staying as far away from each other as they could whilst being cool about it. Klaus and Ben were talking, and seeing each other, and being siblings, and… Ben was _dead_.

“I am such a terrible sister,” she says out loud, which makes them both look at her.

“Oh, was this conversation not enough about Allison?” Ben asks her, and she takes a minute to register the look on his face, all sass and raised eyebrows.

“Ooh, snap,” Klaus says, seemingly used to comments like this from -

_Ben_, who never used to say a word unless someone spoke to him first, from

_Ben_, who used to go to bed first and never sneaked out with anyone and only spoke to Five because Five bugged him all the time for some reason Allison never thought about, from

_Ben_, who seemed to understand Vanya the most when they were kids because they were both so weird and quiet, from

Ben, Ben, Ben her quiet meek afraid sad brother Ben, here and making a joke at her expense, a confidence about him she hadn’t thought about, looking like he does it all the time. Like they speak all the time. Like she’s been his sister this whole time.

“I love you,” she says, relaxing back onto the chair.

“You too, sis,” Ben says, ducking his head. There’s a touch of the shyness still about him, then. Good to know he’s not all different to the boy she knew.

“I don’t actually know how long I can keep this up,” Klaus says, then, sounding strained, hands shaking a little bit.

“Oh my god, Klaus, stop, sorry Ben, Klaus stop-” he lies back, panting, hands and wrists no longer glowing at all “- it, are you okay? Should I get you something?”

“A G&T,” Klaus says, closing his eyes. He opens one, aims it at where Ben was just standing. Slowly raises one hand in a fist, middle fingered salute the same way.

Allison snorts. “Okay,” she says. “How about a Fanta?”

“Oooh,” Klaus perks up.

Allison waits on him for a bit, admires his parasol aloud.

They eat lunch, and then dinner, and then their siblings are returning in various states of dirtiness. Five immediately beelines for Klaus, removing a glove. Diego is rolling his eyes.

“Oh my God, gross,” Klaus says immediately, and Allison tries to peer over.

“Are you going to put that right yet?” Diego says, kind of maybe a little harsh.

“What did you do?”

“Oh wow you saved it for me to see,” Klaus cackles. “That’s disgusting. What’s wrong with you?”

“Get this,” Five says, sounding smug, and there’s a very loud cracking sound that makes Allison feel vaguely queasy, and Diego makes noises like he’s pretending to throw up, and Klaus says,

“Oh ho! How much did that hurt?”

“A lot,” Five says, cheerfully. “Not as much as ring avulsion.”

“No but _that_ needs surgery,” Klaus says, bizarrely knowledgeable on the topic, and it does kind of ring a bell from when they were younger and learned about how to hurt people effectively but to be honest it’s not really knowledge she’s put any effort into retaining.

“You guys are so weird,” Diego says, shaking his head.

Allison agrees.

A little later on and they are all eating outside, all but Allison who waits by the phone until it’s the right time and then dials Patrick’s number.

“Hello?” He says, in English because he knows it’s going to be her. It’s not as bad a feeling as she’d had at the start of the last call.

“Hi,” Allison returns. “How. Uh. How was your day?”

“Yeah,” Patrick says. “It was okay. How was yours?”

“I’m staying at the chalet,” she says, in a rush. “I’m not, I mean. My brothers and sister got bikes. They’ve been out.”

“You should go with them if you want to,” says Patrick. “Enjoy the sights. Can you, um. Do you ride? I mean like on the trails?”

“Oh no, I’m horrible at it,” Allison says.

“I bet you’re not,” Patrick tells her. “I mean. I just mean. You’re always good at things when you put your mind to them.”

Allison thinks about all the things she’s ‘good at’ and stops around the time she starts realizing how many Rumors were consumed to create that impression.

“Hey,” Patrick says, when she doesn’t say anything. “I was thinking. About what you said yesterday.” He sounds so much better today than he had then. “About… how that would be.”

“I meant it,” Allison tells him, twisting the cord in her hand. “I meant it.”

“Alright,” he says. “Okay.”

The line is quiet for another minute.

“Look,” Patrick says, as Allison says,

“Patrick-” and cuts herself off.

“No,” he tells her, “go ahead, you go.”

“Oh,” she says. “I uh. You don’t have to make any decisions today. But I meant what I said. I think we’ve probably both… uh. We’ve already been separated. For a while. And she hasn’t seen me, and. And maybe it would be less painful. For her. And you. I could… I could write a letter?”

“Uh, okay,” Patrick says. “Maybe. I mean. You’re right about that.” He pauses. “Okay, think on it a few more days. I’ll think on it. I think. I think a bit of time would-”

“Not too much time,” Allison says in a rush. “Please. I can’t drag this out. I need… we need to make a decision. For Claire,” she says, firmly.

A sigh. “Don’t interrupt me,” Patrick’s tone has changed a little. She sighs in return. “Alright. Saturday. Let’s… you can call Saturday. About this time again?”

“Yes,” Allison says. “Sorry.”

“Okay. Anything- okay. Bye.”

“Goodbye Patrick.”

It shouldn’t have been great, but. When she hangs up, she feels, strangely, she thinks, the tiniest little bit lighter.

Allison spends a few days doing nothing in particular.

Then she writes Claire a letter.

By Saturday she has made up her mind.

Patrick agrees over the phone, and they choose a date.

Waiting is hard. Luckily she has five distracting siblings, a bicycle and a town full of incredible scenery and even more incredible ways to injure herself in the form of mountain biking trails.

She’s just washed up after an entertaining afternoon of watching Diego hit the same tree four times in a row (the orange padding cushioning the impact at least, he’d have almost certainly broken a collar bone if it hadn’t been there. Their brains choose really weird things to find _fun_) when Luther and Vanya and Five all turn up at once. Allison checks there’s enough chilled soda in the fridge before she starts checking there’s enough food for them all for the evening.

Five claims the bathroom and Vanya and Luther perch on stools by the kitchen island watching her work.

“Did you guys have fun?” She asks, and when she turns around Vanya is beaming. Luther is leaning a little awkwardly in one direction.

“Yeah,” Vanya says, “it was great.” She has been so different since the first time Luther and her went out together. Allison doesn’t think she’s ever seen her sister smile so much. She also doesn’t think she’s ever seen her having caught so much sun – there are little freckles across her nose and tan lines from her gloves and t-shirt.

“Did you get the switchback?” Allison asks, because Vanya had mentioned seeing a small child whizz around the curves and thought that if they could do it she should probably try, and Five had started talking about physics and that was the plan for today.

“She did,” Luther says, sounding all proud. He shifts, looking a bit awkward.

“After maybe eight attempts,” Vanya says, but she looks quietly thrilled all the same.

“That’s so awesome,” Allison cheers.

“She was fast as well,” Luther says, and Vanya doesn’t seem to know what to do with herself.

Luckily Luther isn’t looking and Allison knows how to play it cool.

When Luther shifts _again_ \- like maybe he’s got something bothering him about his back - Allison frowns. “You okay?” She asks, as he shrugs one shoulder, frowning a little.

“Fine,” he waves her off. “Just, uh.”

“I kind of rode my bike into him on one of those eight attempts,” Vanya admits suddenly looking less pleased. “Oh no. It was that, right? Is it hurting?”

“Vanya a chandelier fell on me and I was fine,” Luther says, patiently. “I just twisted it weirdly or something getting up.”

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Vanya says. “Do you need painkillers or anything?”

“No, Vanya, stop,” Luther says, and smiles at her despite looking uncomfortable. “Hey, Diego just got out of the bathroom. You shower first.”

“You’re sure?” Vanya says, frowning.

“Yes,” Luther says, firmly but not unkindly. “It’s fine.”

Vanya hops off the stool and goes to clean up as Allison smiles at Luther and leans against the counter top.

“This trip was a good idea,” Luther says, suddenly, earnest.

“Oh,” Allison says. “Well. You know. It was a little bit selfish really.”

“No it wasn’t,” Luther says. “Anyway we’re all here to support you. So.” He looks away for some reason, like he’s said something difficult or embarrassing.

“I really appreciate it,” Allison says, putting a hand on his. She squeezes briefly, until he isn’t avoiding her eyes. “Really.”

Diego emerges just then. He ignores them completely, heads straight for the fridge. He grabs a soda, cracks it and downs at least a third of it in one go. Then he belches. Luther screws up his nose. Allison turns to the side so neither of them see her laugh.

“Vanya make the switchback?” He asks.

“Yeah,” Luther confirms, sounding maybe a little surprised at the question.

“Cool,” says Diego. “I nearly nailed that patch by the northshore on the black run.” Oh boy, that’s his competitive tone.

“You nailed that tree plenty,” Allison teases, trying to head that off immediately. He gives her a sour look, then glances at Luther, and then frowns at him.

Luther raises his eyebrows. Allison watches Diego put his soda down. Luther’s eyes track the can.

Allison folds her arms and watches as Diego frowns some more, looking at Luther. “Did you do something to your back?” he asks.

Oh.

“No,” Luther says at once, because this is what they do, Allison thinks rolling her eyes. Luther glances at her just as she does so and stands abruptly, wincing. Diego sighs loudly.

“Stand still,” he demands, and somehow makes the decision to get right up in Luther’s personal space and start prodding at his shoulders, his back. Then he makes another sigh, like he’s annoyed.

“Okay,” Diego says. “I can’t feel shit through this coat. Can you get rid of it?”

“What,” Luther replies, standing stock still and clearly not sure what’s going on.

“Oh, right,” Diego says. “You need some physical therapy. Uh. You know what? Do you want someone to sort your back out? Might take the stick out of your ass.”

“What are you talking about?” Luther asks, appearing to be trying to make sense of the conversation and too confused to be offended. Diego huffs yet again.

“Get on the bed in there,” he jerks a thumb at his room, “and get your coat off so you can shrug without looking like someone’s gently stabbing you.”

Allison raises her eyebrows. Luther seems too baffled to do anything other than agree. “Must as well do what he says,” she tells him, pushing him around a little into Diego’s designated room.

The bed covers are on the floor and the pillows are all piled up on one side and Luther just perches awkwardly on the edge. Allison looks around, feeling nosy.

“Bro,” Diego says, ignoring her checking out his view behind him, sounding distracted. “What have you been doing. This is not a good state to be in. You need to lie down.”

“What do you mean?” Luther asks, confusion still evident in his voice.

“I mean you’re uneven and full of knots, and postural – look I get you hurt your shoulder but the rest of the stuff back here isn’t as good as it could be, get your shirt off and let me sort it out.”

“What do you mean?” Allison hears at least four questions within that statement. Diego just huffs, _again_.

“You think I got to boxing in my thirties without learning anything about anatomy? Lie the fuck down,” he says, “and get rid of the shirt.”

Luther hesitates for possibly too long a minute, because Diego’s saying, “it’s just me, idiot. Like you care what I think.”

He does care what his brother thinks, Allison thinks suddenly, uncomfortably. This brother in particular. Probably maybe possibly too much. She looks back, blinks as Luther unbuttons his shirt. The air feels strangely tense and she sees him swallow and she wants to sit next to him and hold his hand but things will probably go easier if she just pokes around, pretends nothing out of the ordinary is happening here.

“These are cute curtains,” she says.

“Okay,” Diego says, behind her. “Chill. We can go slow.” When she glances back, Luther hasn’t got his shirt down past his shoulders.

Diego looks vaguely proficient as he pokes around and then starts doing things with his thumbs that have Luther swaying slightly. When she sees two thumbs poking into the base of Luther’s skull she is viscerally reminded that it has been far too long since she’s treated herself to a massage.

Would it be weird to ask Diego for one?

With one hand practically holding up Luther’s skull and the other trailing down his shoulders, Diego says, “have you always been this wound up? Come on. Let me at it. Your shoulders at least. This is bothering me on a personal level.”

Allison smiles into the dresser drawer she’s pulled open. There’s nothing in it. Diego’s stuff is all still in his bag, or spilling onto the floor next to it.

Luther doesn’t answer, but Diego carries on, “What can I do to make you let me fix this? I absolutely can make this better by the way. ‘Uncanny aim’,” and it’s probably a joke, quoting Dad like that, but he sounds serious. Luther still doesn’t say anything, but he does tug his shirt down a little more. Allison absolutely does not look directly at him, carries on tapping around on the quaint wooden furniture with her fingernails, gently infusing the room with background noise. “Alright, you want to sit up? Better lying down,” and Luther hasn’t said anything in a while now, but then he says,

I’m fine,” kind of gruffly.

By the time Allison has made it around the room, inspecting a little French book she has no idea how to read, looking at a couple of the vague landscapes in the tiny paintings, Diego is pulling at one of Luther’s shoulder-blades and getting stuck for how the shirt sleeve is still on. Luther looks far more comfortable than he had when they started. Diego slides a hand down his arm and pushes the sleeve all the way off, and then pauses. Allison is confused for a brief second until she realizes why.

The top of Luther’s forearm is covered in long, parallel marks, ranging from fainter scars to thicker scars to a pair of scabs that don’t look more than a week old.

Allison holds her breath. Luther looks at his brother for a moment, seemingly confused, looking more than a little dazed, and to his absolute credit it seems to snap Diego out of staring, expression blank, and he maneuvers Luther’s enormous arm up whilst doing something to his shoulder blade.

“Ow,” Luther says, as Diego plants his shoulder under the arm and does something involving pushing into Luther’s back. Allison swallows, can’t stay away any more.

“On a scale of one to ten?” Diego says, not really looking at him, like he’s thinking about what he’s feeling.

“Uh,” Luther says. “I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Diego says, “so if I do this?”

Allison doesn’t know what he does, but Luther’s face curls into a grimace. Diego doesn’t move. Suddenly Luther’s frown turns from pained, to something else. “What was that?” He says.

“This?” Diego says, and does something that sways Luther forward while Allison sits next to his other side, still sleeved. Diego manipulates the arm some more.

“Okay,” Luther says, “that’s. Um.”

“Better?” Diego says, pulling the arm about. Allison looks down at the shirt covering the arm near her, wonders if it’s in the same state. Hopes Luther doesn’t think about what’s on show at all. Wishes she knew how to help. What to even say.

“Better,” Luther agrees, and Diego puts the arm down, and shifts so he’s holding his brother by the wrist. Allison stares, as he draws two fingers along the tendons on the underside, very gently, almost absently, and then he fucking says,

“Okay. Now what the hell is this mess?”

“What are you talking-” Luther stops, looks down at his arm. Goes a little pale.

“Just,” Diego says at once, even though nobody has said anything. “Don’t tell me it’s nothing.” His first two fingers are resting on the pulse point, Allison realizes dumbly. “If you don’t want to explain don’t, but don’t lie. I’m not stupid.”

She expects Luther to tug away from them both, to grab his shirt and leave as angrily as he had when they first saw what had happened to his body. To have to explain to Diego that Five told her and Vanya, didn’t he, Diego wasn’t there but Luther was, and it wasn’t his choice to tell them but Allison knew, kind of. She’s never seen, though. It’s a lot harder when she can see what it means.

Instead of those things, Luther stays stock still.

Diego doesn’t look great. Neither of them look great. Allison should say something. She should be able to help them. She should-

“Next time,” Diego says, voice wavering a little. “Tell one of us. Before you.” He doesn’t seem able to finish.

Allison wants to make eye contact with him, find out what he’s thinking, but he won’t look at her. She holds Luther’s hand; gently as she can, laces their fingers.

Diego doesn’t seem overly concerned about gentle, because he repeats, “tell one of us. Promise,” sounding a lot younger than thirty, and a lot less authoritative than he probably meant to.

After a long while of nobody looking at each other, Luther whispers, “it’s stupid.”

“It is not,” Diego practically growls, making Allison jump, want to cry, want to… she isn’t sure. And then, bizarrely, Diego is taking off his boot and sock, and yanking up his pants. He crosses one ankle over the other. And then he smacks Luther’s bicep, which makes Luther stare at him, and Allison stare at him, but Diego is looking determinedly at Luther.

“This is a better place to do that,” Diego says, which doesn’t make sense, but then Allison looks down and she thinks they look like burn marks, maybe, she isn’t sure – and then, she realizes, the horseshoe shapes are the exact same as the tops of those cheap lighters you can buy. She wants to not understand what she’s looking at. “Arms have a lot of important stuff in them,” Diego says, shoving his pant leg back down roughly. “If you have to do it, don’t do it there, pick somewhere else and use something else. Or hold some ice or something. Or just.” He looks away. “Just tell one of us.”

Luther’s face crumples. He leans forwards into his hands, covers himself. Allison lets him go when he tugs his hand away. Diego doesn’t do anything comforting like lean in to hug him, which, Allison thinks, is probably for the best.

After a long, long minute of nothing, Luther says, “thanks.”

Allison doesn’t understand what for or to who, and she does think, kind of very unhappily, that Diego and Luther understand each other’s self harming tendencies more than she ever would have guessed at, and she is also reeling from the revelation that Diego gets it at all, and she also never thought she’d be looking at Luther like-

Fuck.

How the fuck did she ever imagine she had the capacity to raise a child? She doesn’t have the capacity to console or even understand her brothers when they’re talking so frankly and freely about their problems. And their problems are… huge.

“I love you both,” Allison says, tentative, horrified at her revelation.

“Love you too,” Diego says, immediately, and she can hear the frown.

“I – yeah,” Luther says, a moment later, still covering his face.

They sit together in quiet after that.

Allison needs to write a different letter.

Claire doesn’t need her first one, full of apologies and reasons and things that really are more about Allison than about her daughter.

She writes something new, and something that’s true. And she thinks about fixing the family she’s still got, before she tries to push in on another one.

The day comes. Finally. “Hey. Will you come with me?” Allison asks Vanya, that morning, as she’s doing something to her back tire.

“Sure,” Vanya says. No other questions asked. “Let me pack a bag.”

They cycle along the Swiss border and meander through woodland before changing direction to head on a meaningful route to Les Gets. Allison needed to work off the nervous energy before she got there and. Well.

Her letter is in her bag.

When they reach the village proper, Allison thinks about where Patrick told her to meet, and it’s not hard to find the stretch of open space. She stays in the treeline, wondering how to get his attention.

She sees her daughter for the first time in months and months.

Her throat was cut and she went back in time and she saved the world and she found her family and she didn’t see her daughter, she thought words were enough, she thought the distance wouldn’t matter.

Seeing her now, playing with four other kids -

Allison wonders what her childhood would have been like if they had been allowed to play. To push each other over and hug each other and just _play_, like these children are doing. They have colorful dirty clothes and there’s a picnic blanket and a woman with them, and she’s beautiful even in denim shorts and an over-sized plaid shirt, and Allison recognizes her as one of Patrick’s sisters, the one who lives here all of the time, and Claire runs to the woman and hugs her, gets a kiss on the cheek before she runs away.

Allison swallows, wants to duck backward into the treeline.

A hand works its way into hers.

Vanya doesn’t need to say anything.

Somehow, Patrick is the first to see her. She waits until she has and then does step back. Vanya follows.

He says something to his sister and gets up, comes to her. They walk a minute until they’re definitely out of sight. Patrick folds his arms. He looks anxious, Allison thinks. He looks almost afraid, and that isn’t right.

“Hi,” says Allison. “This is Vanya. My sister.”

“Hi,” Vanya says, sympathy in her voice.

“Hi,” Patrick says. After a moment he reaches into his pocket, takes out an envelope.

“What do you want me to sign?” Allison says, and she isn’t crying, even though this feels like if there ever were the time -

“Just this,” Patrick says, handing something over. Allison scans it. “So you’re not violating the restraining order.”

Allison signs, thinking about her management team who, this time last year, would have had her shot for doing something like this. But.

“And...” Patrick says, pulling out a second piece of paper. He looks tentative now.

“What is it?” Allison asks. It’s short. He holds it out.

When neither of them speak or move, Vanya takes the paper, reads it for a moment. Then she offers it to Allison, nods.

Allison can’t look.

“Just until she’s old enough to decide for herself,” Patrick says, voice thick. “Keep that. I don’t. I don’t need a copy.”

Allison can’t speak.

Patrick looks uneasily at Vanya, at her. “You ruined my life,” he says, looking at the leaves already gathering on the ground. “You messed me the hell up. But you gave me her.” Allison holds her breath. “So. It was worth it.”

“I loved you,” Allison tells him, knows immediately it was the wrong thing to say. She looks away. “I’ll go. You won’t hear from me. But you need anything,” she says. “_Anything_,” she means money, she thinks. “Just please, get in touch. With anyone. Any of us would help.”

“Then,” he looks around. “This is actually good bye.”

“Good bye Patrick,” she says, and takes in his utter relief, suddenly. “Take care,” she says, and backs away until she can’t see him any more.

“Allison,” Vanya says, and puts and a hand on her shoulder.

Allison drops her bicycle and slides down the nearest tree. She starts to laugh. She laughs and laughs until she’s sobbing, and then she’s wailing, and then she’s wailing into Vanya’s chest, and she’s holding on and she’s dying, she might be dying, something inside her is dying to get out, to be burned away. The noises she’s making aren’t human, don’t seem right.

Vanya doesn’t say a word, but, when she’s done, just pulls a bottle of water out of her bag. Doesn’t move far away from her.

Thinking she’s done, it’s out of her system, Allison takes a gulp of water. For some reason, it all hits her again, and she breaks, crying hard, hands clawing out at nothing.

And so goes the entire afternoon.

By the time they make it back to the chalet it’s dark. She avoids everybody, takes her bag to her bedroom and shuts the door.

A few hours later, when the chalet is quiet, she gets back out of bed, goes outside.

Only one person isn’t in bed. He’s sitting out on the deck leaning back on his arms, contemplating the sky.

Allison walks out, quietly, sits down.

“You got a light?” She asks.

Diego fishes around in a pocket. Hands it over. It’s disposable, she thinks, remembering the skin by his ankle. It’s a fucking disposable lighter.

In her hand, folded in two, is the second letter. The one she didn’t leave for Claire, because she’s got nothing to say and nothing at all can make this better.

Allison sets it on fire, watches the paper curl.

When it finally burns up to her fingers, she drops it onto the deck, watches it burn out.

Like it was never there in the first place.

The next day, Diego sits opposite her in the jacuzzi, neck stretched to watch Luther and Klaus play swing ball.

They take a day off of biking.

Somehow, they’ve been in France for two full weeks. And yet it feels like longer.

Allison spends the evening before her last day in the jacuzzi, letting her muscles unwind. Klaus and Five join her, and then Vanya sits for a while, and finally she’s just sitting with Diego while Klaus and Vanya use Luther and Five to have a wheelbarrow race down the grassy space off the deck. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen grown adults look so ridiculous. Or so childishly happy.

Diego is looking out at them, when she looks over. He looks fond and relaxed.

“Can I...” she starts, thinking about how selfish she really, actually is. “Can I tell you something? I need to get it off my chest, and please never tell anybody.” He doesn’t look back at her, but he does say,

“Have at it,” and he still looks relaxed and it’s the reaction she needed.

“I didn’t want Claire. Not really.” She looks in the other direction to him. “I was shit scared the whole time I was pregnant, and I made everybody do what I wanted and Patrick was right, I should not be around a child. I know now that I’m just going to pass on what Reginald gave to me.” She stops, breathes. “I think I want a hysterectomy,” she says, out loud, for the first time. “I want to not be able to have kids. I want to not pass on any of this shit even by accident.”

“Allison,” she hears from him, then, and looks across to him looking… devastated.

“What?” She says. “I’m a mess. I’m such a bad mother that I can’t handle looking after my own child.”

“That doesn’t mean...” he trails off, and then he looks so abruptly angry. “Look,” he says, after a minute. “Look.” He stops, breathes again. “You’d be a great Mom. You just. Maybe it was too soon. And that guy...” he trails off again, looking upset now.

“Hey,” Klaus bounds up to the tub. “What’s the ‘haps? Why do you two look so depressed?”

“No, nothing,” Allison says, and then sees his face drop a little and Diego gives her a bit of a frown and she says, “fuck _off_, you two, can you blame me for wanting to keep my problems out of Klaus’ life? Baby you have enough to deal with,” and Klaus, open mouthed, punches her square in the bicep.

“I’m not a fucking fragile fucking teacup,” Klaus says, and Luther is suddenly right behind him saying,

“Klaus, why are you mad, we’re on a holiday?”

“Allison thinks I’m a _cup_,” Klaus complains, somewhat nonsensically for Luther, scowling at her.

“No I don’t,” she protests, and Diego splashes her. It misses her face by an inch, which is good, because she would have had to kick his ass for that.

“Uh,” says Luther, clearly baffled.

“I don’t think you’re a _cup_,” Allison insists, because… well.

Klaus rolls his eyes. “I won the wheelbarrow race,” he declares. “If anything I’m a wheelbarrow. Bitch.”

“Uh,” Allison doesn’t know what to say.

Klaus abruptly takes off his shirt and pants. “Move up,” he says. “Incoming,” and clambers into the tub. And Luther is blinking and Allison’s eyes are wide and Diego smacks Klaus, hard, as he tumbles in, and says,

“Get your dick the fuck out of my face, man! What is wrong with you!”

Allison abruptly leans to smack the button that controls the bubbles on. That was far more of Klaus than she’s ever needed to see.

“Get over yourself,” Klaus tells Diego, rather primly. “No need to be intimidate- agh!” He squawks as Diego lunges to get him in a headlock. Allison leans back, trying to keep her hair at least mostly dry.

By the time Vanya has disappeared inside, Five has insulted them from across the deck and followed her, and Luther has made a hasty retreat after Klaus threatened to moon them all again if Diego didn’t get out of his face, Allison has lost the melancholy.

Maybe, she thinks, looking at her brothers, separated by Allison’s toenails propped up against the opposite seat and wriggling above the water, maybe _this_ is what family is about.

Now that it’s quiet she can close her eyes, listen to the birdsong.

Six weeks after they get back to their regular lives, holiday behind them, at the gym Allison watches Diego coach a class full of little kids like he does on a Thursday afternoon. This week there’s a girl. She’s cute, about seven or eight maybe; the same age as Claire.

Diego sets her up with kid gloves. She sees a couple of the boys size her up, and give her looks, and then the little girl starts whaling on the bag Diego’s stationed her at and the ones that were looking unsure now look wide eyed and vaguely cautious as they’re paired up on bags one by one.

He seems to forego the usual pair sparring that week and Allison wonders if it’s because there’s only the one girl.

She wonders if the kid will be back next week.

At the end of the class, the parents mill around, collecting up their children, booking in for the following week, or block booking to Al’s delight, asking about other events at the gym. Allison watches the girl carefully remove her gloves to high-five the woman who’s just rushed through the gym door, like she’s late. The woman – Mom? Allison wonders – is wearing a uniform of some kind. She high-fives the kid and talks to her for a bit, both of them animated and avid. And then the kid points at Diego and the maybe-Mom walks over to speak to him, and Allison hears,

“she loved it, thank you so much, I had heard this was a good class but she’s looking so cheerful!”

“No problem,” Diego says, “she has a mean right hook!”

“Tell me about it,” maybe-Mom says. “And too much energy. But she’s a kid, you know? They’re not easy.”

“You coming back next week?” Diego asks the little girl, who’s leaning against maybe-Mom’s hip.

“You bet your ass,” she says, loudly, and maybe-Mom bites her lip and looks skyward and puts a hand on the kids head and says,

“God damn, I love you, let’s go sign up,” with a final look at Diego, and then he sees her watching.

When everybody has cleared out, her brother comes to sit next to her.

“You okay?” He says, frowning.

“Yeah,” Allison says. “That little girl was killing it.”

“She sure was,” Diego says, still frowning.

“Made me think of Claire,” Allison admits. “If she would like boxing.”

Diego is quiet for a long time.

“It’s for the best,” Allison says. “It’s… I could never be like that woman.”

“Don’t make any quick decisions,” Diego says, then. “Don’t. Think about your health. Think about-”

“Calm down, Jesus,” Allison says. “What’s with you?”

“Nothing,” he says quickly. “You said it yourself. When she’s old enough. If she wants to. She’ll find you.”

“My _daughter_,” Allison sighs. “Do you think she will?”

“No point thinking about it.” He hops up. “You gonna mope or you wanna spot me? I’m gonna try and bench two twenty five.”

“That's...” Allison does the math. “Oh, God. Okay. You probably want Steve for that.”

“Nah, you’ll do,” he tells her.

She’ll do.

She’ll do.


End file.
